Interludes: Steel and Heart
by Project Arashi
Summary: Each character has stories to tell. Listen well to the stories of the swordmaster and the swordmaiden, of their intertwined fates, weaved together by a red string and joining a tapestry of life and love, between Heaven and Earth.
1. Red Silk

**A/N:** In an effort to fill in some additional backstories and let the deleted scenes of _Kuro Arashi_ see the light of day, I'll be introducing the first of the Interludes series. This Interlude series, Steel and Heart, tells of events that revolve around Seno and Motoko, both together and individually. I'll be prodding (read: beating over the head until they comply) the other actors in Kuro Arashi to begin their own Interludes series to expand on their own characters in a way that may not be covered during the course of events in _Kuro Arashi_.

* * *

_August 15, 1994  
__Shinmeiryu Dojo, Kyoto Mountains  
__1425 hours, local time_

There were a number of children who lived and studied Shinmeiryu within the ancient stone walls of the dojo, but there were none who had managed to befriend the five-year old Motoko Aoyama like the green-eyed boy from Tokyo. His inquisitive nature and brilliant smile were infectious, and the child heiress of the dojo spent every moment that wasn't taken up by training or studying playing all over the grounds with the boy. No more than a month after his arrival, Motoko had declared to her elder sister, Tsuruko Aoyama, that she and the boy were "bestest best friends."

Tsuruko, of course, had gently chastised her sister on her grammar, but had been very happy for her nonetheless. The two children were bound from the beginning by a red string of fate, and few were the instructors at the dojo who could not see this.

Stepping out onto the dojo grounds, Tsuruko immediately spotted the two children laughing and calling out as they chased each other in the warm sunshine. Patrolling groundskeepers watched them in their game with warm smiles on their faces, and would quickly move to the sides should the youngsters move into a potential collision with them. Motoko was the one doing the chasing, her small hand reaching out to grasp the edge of her best friend's gi sleeve as she dug her heels into the ground to bring him to a halt.

"Tag!" she exclaimed happily. "I got you, Sen-kun!"

"Nuh-uh!" he shot back, jerking his arm in an attempt to free his sleeve. Though he was the faster of the two of them, she was not only stronger than him but half a head taller. His efforts to free himself failed. "My clothes don't count! You gotta tag _me_!"

"No, I don't!" she argued, tackling him to the ground and pinning his arms beside his head. "I tagged you, now you're it!"

"No, I'm not!"

Watching the scene, Tsuruko smiled warmly and called out, "She is correct this time, Seno-kun. She got your sleeve, and that _is_ a proper tag."

This elicited a protruding tongue toward the boy from Motoko, accompanied with a happy, "Told you so!"

"Come inside, children," Tsuruko beckoned. "It's time to finish your afternoon lessons, then you can get ready for the summer festival."

"Yay, festival!" Motoko exclaimed, jumping up and then reaching down to grab her friend's hand and pull him to his feet. "Come on, Sen-kun, we're going to the festival tonight!"

---

_Central Park, Kyoto  
__1936 hours, local time_

More or less all of downtown Kyoto had been prepared for the summer festival, with countless booths of food and entertainment set up along the central park. Everywhere, people from the surrounding countryside wandered the streets in their multi-colored and varied yukatas, catching up with old friends, spending time with loved ones, or simply enjoying the sights.

Two five-year old children sat on a bench in the middle of the park, recovering their energy from having spent the entire afternoon running amok, much to the chagrin of their guardians, and waiting for the fireworks display. Motoko, wearing a deep indigo yukata with flowers picked out in shades of white and violet on it, hugged close the yellow teddy bear that Seno had won for her at one of the shooting booths. It had taken an embarrassing number of tries to win the bear, and in the end the boothkeeper had ended up discreetly cheating in the boy's favor.

Sitting next to her, Seno wore a dark blue yukata with a stylized Kyoto skyline embroidered in white on the bottom half. He held a pouf of cotton candy larger than his head in his left hand that the two were idly pulling strands of congealed sugar from. He'd fairly well decided after the shooting booth incident that ranged projectile weapons weren't his forte, and that he'd best stick to his swordsmanship.

"Ne, Sen-kun," Motoko said, licking sugar off her fingers. "Did you know that aneue is getting married in a few weeks?"

He nodded slightly. "I heard the other kids talking about it. Sounds like it'll be fun."

Motoko nodded, and stared off into space for several moments. Then she looked back at her friend. "Sen-kun, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?"

He thought about it for all of half a second. "An archaeologist!" he said.

"A who?"

"You know, the guys that dig up dinosaur bones."

She smiled. Of course. Dinosaurs were his favorite subject, and he spent more time reading books about dinosaurs, some of them several grade levels higher than him, than he did studying the material he was supposed to be studying.

"Or maybe I want to be a weather guy," he reconsidered. "I don't know."

Motoko's little heart skipped a beat, and she felt her face warming. "I have an idea, Sen-kun."

He turned to give her his full attention. "What is it, Moto-chan?"

"Let's..." She looked down for a moment, squeezing the bear tightly. "Let's be in love when we grow up!"

After a few moments of silence, she dared look up at him. He looked confused. "What does that mean, Moto-chan?"

"I, uh...I'm not really sure..." she admitted. "I think it means that we'll get to play together all the time. I always want to be able to play with you, Sen-kun."

"Me, too, Moto-chan." He nodded, then clenched his free hand into a fist. "Okay! When we grow up, we're going to be in love, just like Tsuruko-sama and...uh..her friend?"

Motoko positively beamed, and without thinking, she leaned forward and kissed her friend, not taking into account that he was still facing toward her. Their noses bumped together a bit rudely, but neither of them seemed to notice.

It was over as soon as it began, but Motoko detected the lingering taste of cotton candy and soy sauce. She licked her lips, blushed healthily, then scooted over to lay her head on Seno's shoulder, hugging the bear tightly as she watched the first fireworks shoot up into the night sky.


	2. Feathers

_April 7, 1996  
__Shinmeiryu Dojo, Kyoto Mountains  
__0937 hours, local time_

"Shh, be quiet!" Seno's little voice whispered from beneath a bush along one of the central walkways. "She'll hear us if you don't stop giggling."

Hiding beside him, Motoko clamped her hands over her mouth to stifle the giggles trying to get out of her. The two children had immediately dove into the bushes when they heard Motoko's older sister calling for her. They knew by the lack of venom in Tsuruko's voice that Motoko wasn't in any trouble, which was why they were making a game out of it.

The pair watched and retreated further back under the bush as they saw the red hakama and sandal-clad feet of the current head of the dojo stop right by their bush, shifting slightly in place as though searching for them. "Oh, I wonder where my dear sister could be," she said in a sing-song tone. She had, of course, already spotted them, but they didn't know that. "Setsuna-chan, do you see Motoko-han anywhere?"

"No, Tsuru-neesama," a cute little voice replied.

"Ho, hum," Tsuruko said. "I wonder where those two could be?"

"Two?" the child's voice asked.

"Of course. Motoko-han always has Seno-kun by her side. They're almost inseparable."

"Tsuru-neesama, what's...in-sep-rer-abil mean?"

The elder Aoyama laughed. "Why, that means you can't pull them away from each other."

Without warning, a pair of hands struck into the bush the two children were hiding in, snagging them by their gis and pulling them out into the daylight, held aloft, wriggling, in front of Tsuruko like a pair of fish on hooks. "You see, Setsuna-chan? Always together."

The kids looked down at the small girl clinging to Tsuruko's leg. She was no more than three years old, and wore the child-sized version of the traditional hakama and gi, but what was striking about her was her snow-white hair and ruby red eyes that perfectly matched the colors of her clothing. At the two older children's attention, she shrank closer to Tsuruko's leg.

"Now, now, Setsuna-chan, don't be so shy," Tsuruko said as she set the children down. "Motoko-han, this is Sakurazaki Setsuna-chan. We'll be adopting her into our family."

Motoko looked up at her sister, then stepped up to Setsuna and leaned down to her level, even as the small child tried to hide herself in Tsuruko's hakama. Smiling, Motoko offered her hand to the girl. "Hello, Setsu-chan. I'm glad to meet you. Want to play with me and Sen-kun?"

"Sen-kun and I," Tsuruko gently chastized.

Setsuna looked up at Tsuruko, who smiled warmly and nodded. "Go ahead, Setsuna-chan."

Tentatively, Setsuna released her grip on Tsuruko's hakama and took a small step toward Motoko. She looked at the older girl's outstretched hand, looked down at her tiny hands, then threw herself against Motoko, clinging to the older girl's gi. Motoko blinked at the smaller girl's actions, then slowly wrapped her arms around the child in a hug.

"Seno-kun," Tsuruko said.

The green-eyed boy snapped upright and looked up at his best friend's sister. "Yes, Tsuruko-sama?"

"Setsuna-chan is a very lonely child," she told him. "Mean people treat her bad because of her hair and eyes. I want you and Motoko-han to make her feel welcome here. Am I understood?"

Seno nodded. "Don't worry, Tsuruko-sama. We'll play with her lots."

The Shinmeiryu heiress smiled kindly and reached down to ruffle the boy's hair. "Thank you, Seno-kun. I'll leave you three to your games now."

Tsuruko departed then, and Seno turned toward Motoko and Setsuna. The latter was still clinging tightly to the former, hiding her face in the folds of her gi. Moving closer to the newly-introduced sisters, Seno knelt down to be at eye level with Setsuna. "Hi there, Setsuna-chan. My name's Seno. Want to be friends?"

The little girl peeked at him with one red eye, then hid it in Motoko's gi again. "No," her muffled voice snapped. "You're like _them_. You'll laugh at me. You'll hurt me."

Seno and Motoko blinked at each other, then Motoko laid her hand on Setsuna's shockingly-white hair. "No, he won't, Setsu-chan. Sen-kun is my very best friend, and I wouldn't like him if he was mean. He won't laugh or hurt you."

Setsuna looked up at Motoko with the trusting, tear-filled eyes of a hurt child. "Promise?"

Motoko smiled and nodded. "I promise."

Slowly, Setsuna disentangled herself from Motoko, and glared at Seno. "You better not laugh!" she scolded.

"Laugh at what?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.

She didn't answer him immediately, instead closing her eyes and clenching her fists together, as though concentrating hard on something or trying to ignore a large amount of pain. Suddenly, she gasped aloud, and then two white wings were protruding from her back, matching the color of her hair perfectly. She looked to Motoko and Seno, who stood watching her with their eyes wide open, and blushed fiercely, raising her hands to cover her eyes, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"I knew it," she sobbed. "You hate me now!"

But then, to her great surprise, she felt gentle tugs and touches on the feathers of her wings, and opened her eyes to see both older children inspecting her wings with awestruck faces.

"Setsu-chan, your wings are so beautiful and soft," Motoko said, gently tracing her fingers over a row of feathers. "Why would we hate you because of them?"

"Yeah, this is like...the coolest thing I've ever seen," Seno agreed.

Setsuna felt her eyes misting over with tears again, this time for an entirely different reason. It took only seconds for her to break down, and she flung her arms around the necks of both children, pulling them close to her and sobbing uncontrollably into the space between them. Seno and Motoko both hugged her comfortingly, letting her cry out to them. Both children easily heard Setsuna's whispered, _"Thank you,"_ in the midst of her tears.

* * *

**A/N:** The _Steel and Heart_ interludes are not intended to fall in chronological order, and I want there to be no misconceptions that they will ever do so by any means other than coincidentally. These first two just happened to fall together in order, some other pairs or triplets might as well, but I largely expect them to jump back and forth across the lives of Seno and Motoko. 


	3. Chocolate

_February 14, 2008  
__Hinata Apartments, Hinata Onsen, Japan  
__0603 hours, local time_

Seno slowly awoke with a yawn, stretching languidly in place before letting out a deep breath and crossing his arms underneath his head. The scent of cherry-vanilla filled the air, drawing his attention to the dresser situated against the wall at the foot of the futon, where a wispy tendril of smoke rose from a half-consumed incense stick. He drew in a deep breath of the pleasant smell, then sighed in contentment and glanced to his right. Motoko's side of the bed was empty, but the residual warmth he felt when he placed his hand on the spot where she had slept indicated she had recently vacated the room.

He closed his eyes and focused, and easily honed in on his wife's aura, which was now approaching their room from the stairwell. This was nothing like the Byakkugan aura-sensing ability possessed by Shinobu; it was said, after all, that two soulmates could sense one another's direction and state of mind from miles distant. Motoko's mindset was happy and content, as though she'd just accomplished a task to her own satisfaction that she perceived to be very difficult.

As he expected, the door to their room slid open and the Shinmeiryu heiress entered, turning to slide the door shut behind her. She was clad in her red hakama and white gi, with a white headband in the cliché indicative of someone about to do some hard work wrapped around her forehead. She turned to face Seno, knowing he was awake, and smiled warmly. "Good morning," she greeted, then all but floated across the floor and slid into bed next to him, curling up against his side and laying her head on his shoulder.

"The day being what it is tends me to disagree, but any morning lying next to you is a good one," he answered.

She flushed faintly and smiled at him as he turned onto his side, tangling his fingers into her hair as much as the short length allowed, and he leaned down to kiss her softly and lovingly. Her own fingers clenched the material of his nighttime A-shirt as she leaned her head back, closing her eyes and reveling in the feeling of blissful warmth spreading through her body. She parted her lips slightly, deepening the kiss as she gently rolled them over in order to lay on top of him. She shifted her body to rest her knees on the futon on either side of his stomach, cupping his face in her hands and pulling herself up to deepen the kiss even further.

After a few more moments, she pulled back, her chest heaving from lack of air, but grinning like a fool. She laid down on top of him, wrapping her right arm around his neck and brushing her fingers against the back of his neck as she placed small, soft kisses along his jawline.

Suddenly, she stopped and sat up, reaching inside her gi with a look of almost-confusion on her face.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, almost expecting her to remove whatever lingerie she was wearing, but instead was surprisingly amused when she produced an orange bag of Reese's peanut butter chips, used for baking cookies, and handed it to him with a grin. Taking the bag in his hands, he turned it over to read its label, then looked up at her with a wry grin on his own face. "Baking chocolate? I thought we were a little past this stage, aren't we?"

She laughed softly. "Of course we are. But you like those so much, so I always get you a bag." At his skeptical look, she punched his shoulder. "Don't look at me like that. You're going to get a _honmei_ so stop giving me the punched-baby look."

He grinned and pulled the bag open carefully, so as not to send peanut buttery chocolate chips scattering all over the room, then reached in, scooped out five or six, and quickly consumed them. He reached in again, pulled out two, and held them out to Motoko between his fingers. She obligingly opened her mouth so he could feed her the chocolate chips. Giving him a sultry look, she closed her mouth on his fingers, then used her tongue to pull the chips from his grip, taking a moment to swallow them before slowly licking any remaining peanut buttery chocolate from his fingers.

Keeping his gaze locked on her with her bedroom eyes, she parted her lips just enough to allow his fingers to slip out of her mouth, then licked her lips and grinned at her husband, leaning down toward him. Halfway down, she froze in place at the knock on their door, followed by Shinobu's voice nervously calling out, "Motoko, it's done."

Her face as red as a tomato, the Shinmeiryu heiress turned to look over her shoulder at the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the younger girl's silhouette remaining steadfastly outside. "Thank you, Shinobu," she said, managing to keep her voice even despite her embarrassment. "We'll be down in a few minutes."

Silence filled the air for several moments, broken only by the sound of the white mage's footsteps retreating away from the upper-story room. As soon as the sound of the footsteps died out, Motoko let out the breath she had been holding in an explosive laugh and buried her face in Seno's shirt, suddenly overcome by uncontrollable giggles.

For his part, Seno merely ran his fingers through her hair, eliciting a pleased sigh from her amidst all the giggles, and amusedly asked, "It?"

She took a moment to compose herself, the smiled down at him. "Your _honmei_, of course."

"Well, let's not keep Shinobu waiting, mm?"

Motoko nodded and stood up, spending the time that Seno used to rise to straighten her gi and hakama. She left a mental note to stop wearing them in the morning unless she was specifically going to train. Once Seno was up, she took his hand in hers and led him downstairs to the dining room.

As they neared the stairwell, they heard the faint sounds of gunfire, strange engine noises, explosions, and death coming from Hiroyuki's room. Neither paid it any mind, both knowing that he was already playing _Halo 3_, even this early in the morning. They listened to the sound of something striking metal repeatedly, then an explosion, then continued striking, and Seno commented off-hand, "Tank-Killer Murakami strikes again."

Motoko smiled and squeezed his hand, then laid her head on his shoulder, allowing her balance to naturally shift so that she wouldn't move awkwardly in that position. She said nothing in reply to her husband's game remark, and he quickly recognized that she was in a romantic mood and fell silent, allowing the couple to finish the short trip to the dining room in a comfortable, loving silence.

Once in the dining room, she led him to a seat and motioned for him to sit, giving him a quick kiss once he did so, before disappearing into the kitchen. He could faintly hear her and Shinobu speaking inside, and as he waited, Hiroyuki came meandering down the stairs on his morning quest for the newspaper.

"How'd it go?" the swordsman asked.

"Big team, Valhalla Covies, 100-86, us," the Mahora student answered as he exited the front door.

Seno nodded, then looked back toward the kitchen in time to see Motoko walking out, carrying an object the size of her palm, wrapped in festive, holiday pink cellophane, and tied off with a red ribbon. She held the object out to him, smiling nervously, and said, "I hope you like it."

He took the offered object and gave her a warm smile, then focused on undoing the ribbon and unwrapping the cellophane. Once it was removed, he looked down at the chocolate she had made, which was exactly identical to Hiroyuki's _Halo 3_ Spartan helmet belt buckle. Seno grinned and turned the chocolate over in his hand. "This is totally awesome, hon," he said, then carefully broke off an edge of it and stuck it in his mouth. Motoko held her breath.

It was only a moment before he pronounced, "This is _excellent_. And a strawberry filling, too, no less. You really outdid yourself, hon."

Motoko smiled, her cheeks burning red at the praise. "I'm glad you like it. Happy Valentine's Day."

"She made it all by herself, too," Shinobu added. "All I did was keep an eye on her and showed her where various cooking utensils were."

Seno's eyebrows went up appreciatively as Motoko's blush increased. "Wow, I'm impressed." He broke off another piece of the chocolate and held it out to Motoko. "Here, have some."

The swordswoman took the offered piece of chocolate and took a small bite out of it, then nodded and smiled. "It looks like I'm a better cook than I thought." She finished off the rest of the piece, then yawned.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Hon? Did you stay up all night making this?"

She sweatdropped and smiled nervously. "Well, not _all_ night..."

"Okay, then we're going back to bed," he said, wrapping the remaining half of the chocolate in the cellophane, then standing up and wrapping his arms around Motoko. "Come on, you need your sleep."

"But what about...?"

He kissed her softly to silence her, then said, "It's fine. You don't have to do anything special for me. Besides, you know how much I like to watch you sleep."

She blushed again, then nodded. "Okay. I didn't have plans for us until tonight anyway." She wrapped her arms around him, then kissed the side of his neck. "And I certainly don't mind getting to sleep in."

"Shall I wake you two for lunch?" Shinobu asked.

"That'll be fine," Seno answered. "See you then."

As the white mage returned to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, the Shinmeiryu couple headed back upstairs, with Motoko seeming to lean more and more on Seno every few steps. By the time they had reached their room, she had fallen asleep, and he had merely scooped her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way.

Once inside, he pulled shut the dark curtains he'd hung up near the door in order to keep out the sun, then gently laid Motoko on her side of the futon, removed her gi and hakama, then pulled the covers over her. He took a moment to set the wrapped chocolate on the nightstand beside his wireless XBox controller, then slid into the futon and shifted over to curl himself against her back. He slipped his left arm around her stomach, then kissed the back of her neck softly.

"Good night, my love," he whispered to her, then laid his head on the pillows and closed his eyes.


	4. Shadow

_May 15, 2007  
__Nakakami Residence, Hinata Onsen, Japan  
__1323 hours, local time_

In the sleepy early afternoon hours of the day, the twin Ninjas of the resident swordscouple of Hinata-Sou pulled up outside the modest home a quarter-mile away from the sparkling, crystal blue waters of Sagami Bay. The riders shut off their vehicles within seconds of one another, then stepped off the motorcycles and removed their helmets.

A few steps away from her motorcycle, Motoko reached up to pull her ponytail out from inside her jacket, and as she turned her head, she caught sight of Seno removing Shinaijou from its holder on the side of his red Ninja. She raised an eyebrow. "You're bringing your sword into your own home?"

He shrugged as he slid the sheathed weapon between his belt and the waistband of his pants. "They asked me to bring it in." He gestured to her. "You're bringing that?"

She was about to ask what he meant, when she heard a familiar squawk and felt the weight of Shippu landing on her shoulder. She turned to look up at the crane, which regarded her with an intelligence that seemed almost human, then shrugged as well. "Think of him like a familiar?" she suggested.

"Oooh, used a D&D term, ten points," he said, grinning, as he walked over and slipped an arm around her waist, kissing her lightly. "Only problem is that you're a samurai, not a sorcerer, so you're not supposed to get a familiar."

She smiled as well and laced the fingers of her right hand with his. "I don't have any levels in sorcerer?"

He shook his head as he began to walk toward the front door with her. "No, you have twelve levels in Shinmeiryu demonslayer."

She was winging it now, knowing nothing about Dungeons and Dragons that he was referring to, but still enjoying the banter nonetheless. "And that doesn't give me an animal companion?"

"Nah, Demonslayer is all about offense and powering up yourself and beatfacing on evil stuff," Seno explained. "Nealla says they're like Eastern paladins, and she's not wrong."

Motoko gave her husband a skeptical look. "So you've actually made some sort of classes or whatever based on Shinmeiryu?"

"Fairly accurately, at that. Well, so only Demonslayer is accurate. Mage crusher is completely made up, and I don't know enough about onmyouji mages or exorcists to make classes for them."

She smiled. "You haven't been keeping up your studies."

He rolled his eyes. "Hon, I haven't had any Shinmeiryu training since I was what? Six? Five?"

"Had to be seven," she answered as they reached the door and Seno rang the bell. "We were five when we made that promise at the summer festival."

"Still, that's a long time. And you know I was training as a demonslayer anyway, just like you. Magic's not my style."

"According to the book we found, it wasn't your ancestor's style either, when he made Shinmeiryu. He was a mage crusher, from what the book indicates. You could've been, too."

He shrugged. "Generally, one has to have knowledge of what they're anti. And I know about as much about the intricacies of magic as computational physics."

The couple fell silent as they heard the doorknob turn, followed shortly by the door swinging inward. Just on the other side of the threshold was a woman of obvious American descent, with light red hair hanging down to her shoulders. She smiled brilliantly at them, then stepped forward and engulfed both of them in a hug.

After a moment, the trio parted, and the woman lightly admonished in perfect Japanese, "You two should visit more often. You're right up the road, after all."

Seno shrugged. "Sorry. You know how it is."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh yes, you're way too cool to visit your parents," she said sarcastically, then turned to Motoko. "Motoko, dear, it's nice to see you again under more pleasant circumstances."

The swordswoman smiled and bowed her head to her mother-in-law. They had been introduced previously at the funeral of Seno's grandfather in America, just over a month ago. "Thank you for allowing us into your home."

The corner of her mouth twitched in the same manner that Seno's would when he was fighting to hold in a smirk. "I still can't get over you settling down with such a proper young lady," she said. Then she reached out and punched her son lightly in the chest. "And I can't believe you got married before you turned twenty."

He shrugged again, this time raising both hands, palms up, for emphasis. "Hey, things just happened the way they did. Sure, it was just a spur of the moment thing, really, but that doesn't make it wrong."

"No, in your case, fortunately, it doesn't." She smiled proudly as she looked between the two of them. "You two always have been such a wonderful couple, even as children."

"_Speaking_ of," Seno said, eyes slightly narrowed. "We're going to have a little talk later on about why you guys let me forget about my training in Shinmeiryu as a kid."

His mother sighed. "So long ago, for so many reasons," she mused. "That is a discussion for another time, and it's not why we asked you to come. Please, you two, come in."

The pair were ushered inside, Seno's mother shutting the door behind them, and then proceeding into the living room, giving them time to stop and remove their riding boots. As they did so, Motoko looked over at her husband. "It really is not that important of a matter," she told him. At his questioning look, she elaborated, "The fact that you seemed to have forgotten of your training, and they knew, and obviously did not remind you. The important thing is that you did remember."

He shook his head and nudged his boots up against the wall with his feet, then leaned over and took her left hand in his. "It's not the training that upsets me," he said. "In letting me forget about Kyoto, they let me forget about you." As he said this, he pulled her hand toward him and kissed her fingers. "They had no way of knowing you'd eventually come to live here, so by letting me forget, they risked separating us forever."

Motoko smiled, feeling her face flush. Seno was an abrasive jackass most of the time, but on occasion he was a hopeless romantic, and he still managed to surprise her when he'd suddenly swing into that mode. She leaned toward him and pressed her forehead to his, placing her right hand on the back of his head and gently threading her fingers through his hair. "Destiny has bound us, Seno. Even if I had not left Kyoto to come here, we would have found each other eventually. Still, it is displeasing, the realization that things had been left so thoroughly to fate. My own sister is as much guilty of this as your parents." She grinned, then kissed him. "I think we must work on some form of payback, my husband."

"And _I_ think that I'm a bad influence on you," he grinned back, likewise returning the kiss.

The couple stood, linked hands, and moved into the living room. Inside, Seno's parents were conversing quietly about the latest events on the news. Motoko's eyes were drawn toward the corner on their right as they entered, where a low end table was situated. On its surface was a framed photograph of an older gentleman wearing a United States Army dress uniform, Vietnam-era if her memory served, an incense burner, a handmade figurine of an Army soldier bearing a rifle as honor guard, an empty sword stand, and a small sake jug with two cups.

In silence, the two crossed the room to the shrine and knelt before it. Reverently, Seno removed his sheathed blade from his side and placed it on the sword stand, then lit an incense stick and pressed his hands together before him. Motoko likewise folded her hands and lowered her head. After a few moments, Seno raised his head. Accustomed to sensing his slightest movements, Motoko opened her eyes and looked over at him. He nodded, and they rose, moving to sit in the loveseat across from their parents.

Almost immediately, Seno reverted to his normal self and leaned back heavily, draping his arms across the back of the loveseat. "So I get you guys wanting us to come over for a visit," he said without preamble. "What I don't get is why you specifically asked me to bring Shinaijou with me."

"Don't you always carry her with you?" his father asked. "Isn't that why you had your motorcycle customized so?"

Seno leaned over and whispered to Motoko, "As you can see, I get everything from my family. Pop culture predisposition from my grandfather, smartass from my father..."

She smiled faintly, then forced it away. This did not go unnoticed by her father-in-law, who gave her an amused smile. "You need not be so formal, Motoko. You _are_ family, after all. Though, it is nice to see that you're not a nontraditionalist bum like my son is."

The light-hearted way in which the comment was delivered, coupled with Seno's nonchalantly waving it off, robbed the remark of its venom. "As much noise as she used to make about femininity being a weakness, she sure acts like a proper Japanese wife pretty good," he commented off-hand.

She immediately caught him across the chin with a textbook right cross, sending him flipping over the arm of the loveseat. It wasn't until he hit the ground like a sack of bricks that she remembered her in-laws were watching, and immediately flushed crimson as she cursed herself for letting her instinctive reaction to her husband's teasing overtake her.

To her great surprise, neither of them appeared to be upset by the hit. Her father-in-law laughed heartily and proclaimed, "Now _that's_ the fiery Aoyama temper I've heard so much about!"

Her mother-in-law merely shrugged. "He deliberately provoked that."

"Of course," the swordsman replied, back in his seat and in the same position as though nothing had happened. "Counterproductive to my point though it was, actions always speak loudest."

"Indeed," his father said, clearing his throat. "And your actions, my son, have spoken greatly of you. You recall when we gave you Shinaijou upon returning from America, we said that you would be given the other half of the family daisho if and when you needed it."

His face betraying absolute seriousness, Seno nodded.

His father stood and moved to the fireplace, where a single wakizashi rested on a display on the mantle. "Though we are not trained in the secret arts of Shinmeiryu, nor do we possess the most rudimentary martial arts ability, your mother and I are both aware of destiny's attention upon you. And so, the time has come."

He reached up and gently lifted the sheathed blade from its place on the mantle, then turned back toward the gathering. "It has been our family tradition that our ancestral daisho should not be brought together and wielded as a whole except in times when destiny lays heavily upon the family."

"Oh, so no pressure then," Seno smarted off.

"Be serious," Motoko said, staring sidewards at him.

Seno's father smiled, then held the weapon out toward his son. It was a simple weapon, no wrappings on its black metal hilt, no accouterments other than the crest of the Nakakami family, two dragons entwined around a crane, carved into the black wood of the sheath.

Reverently, Seno took the blade in his hands, then completely and intentionally ruined the solemnity of the moment by remarking, "You know, if there were any justice in the world, I'd be hearing the 'Gained the Master Sword' theme right now. From _Twilight Princess_, preferably."

"Traitor," his father, a former Sony CEO, commented with a smirk.

"Hey, it's not my fault that Nintendo got Zelda."

There was no fanfare, no dramatic sound as the blade passed hands from father to son. "The last time one of our family wielded our ancestral weapons together was during the Sengoku period, when our family served the Date clan."

Seno looked up at his father. "Are you serious?"

He nodded. "In those days, our family lived in what is now Miyagi Prefecture and served as retainers of Date Masamune. In fact, the greatest warrior of our family carried our blades as his weapons at the Battle of Sekigahara." Pausing, Seno's father took the time to look meaningfully at both Seno and Motoko. "The two of you may not be aware of it, but the Aoyama and Nakakami families have a long history together, dating back to the times of the very first samurai. There have been more than a few marriages between our two families."

A look of not-quite-disgust reminiscent of Jack Sparrow appeared on Seno's face. "Wait, you're telling me that me and Motoko are like...cousins?"

His father laughed. "Unlikely. Relations between our families have been strained since the Sengoku times. You see, at the Battle of Sekigahara, we served under Date in the Eastern Army. Motoko's family were loyal to the Toyotomi and fought in the Western Army."

Silence met that remark like the explosion of a bomb. "Oh," was the only thing said, by Motoko.

Her father-in-law nodded gravely. "The story is told that the two strongest warriors of both families, married and parents themselves, found themselves on opposite sides of the battle that day. Both had known since they were children that they would meet their destiny at the hands of their beloved. On that day, the two warriors met in the center of the valley. As true warriors, they did not hold back. Their battle is said to have lasted from dawn until dusk, even at one point drawing the personal attention of both Tokugawa and Ishida. When the two finally slew each other, it is said that the heavens weeped for three days and three nights."

Seno looked down at the blade he held, suddenly regarding it as though it were a poisonous snake. "So the blades I wield in the stead of my ancestor have been bathed with the blood of his love," he said quietly, then slowly turned to look at Motoko. "I can imagine how it must have felt, fighting against the woman you love, knowing that there was no hope for survival, no talking it down, that at the end of the battle you were both going to be dead."

Motoko laid her hand over his on the hilt of the sword. "It is a feeling we shall never know," she assured him. "No force on Earth or in the heavens could turn me against you, Seno. Never again."

The swordsman felt warmth at the touch of their hands, but then a moment later realized that the warmth was coming from beneath his hand, rather than on top of it. He leaned back on the loveseat and looked down at the wakizashi, which was now sheathed in a blue light so faint as to be almost imperceptible.

"Oh bugger, not another magic sword..."

At those words, the weapon flew out of his hands, slamming itself upright on the ground in the center of the room. All was silent for a moment, then the ghostly apparition of a hand clenching the hilt of the blade appeared. The apparition grew outwards, forming into the silhouette of a young woman wearing the trademark outfit of a Sengoku-era kunoichi kneeling on the ground in Seno's direction. The apparition took on color and mass, solidifying until fully manifest.

The ghostly kunoichi raised her head and stared at Seno with one green eye, her other eye hidden behind the long bangs of her black hair, the rest of which was tied back in a loose ponytail. Her visible eye regarded him steadily for several moments, before she turned her head and stared toward Shinaijou, itself glowing with a violet aura. After another moment, the kunoichi turned back to Seno, and bowed her head toward him.

"Hisato-dono has informed me that you are the rightful wielder of her blade," she spoke in an older dialect of Japanese. "I am Kazue, kunoichi of the Aoyama clan, bound by soul to the blade Kagetaku, by honor to the rightful wielder of Shinaijou. I am yours to command, my lord."

It went without saying that Seno was essentially dumbstruck by this new turn of events. He'd of course known all along that his primary sword was enchanted, but here this ninja had made it sound like Shinaijou was an intelligent weapon, or more accurately, a weapon with a soul residing in it. And that now the other half of his family daisho also had a spirit bound to it.

And thus, his almost-legendary wit failed him, and he was left staring and pointing at the still-bowing ninja, and could only utter, "Uhhh..."

The kunoichi raised her head again, and though the lower half of her face was covered by a mask, Seno could have sworn she was smirking. "My lord, you appear confused," she said. "Were you not made fully aware of your weapons and their capabilities?"

"All...I knew was that Shinaijou breaks when it detects lies and glows when it detects love," Seno responded tentatively. "And quit with that 'lord' crap. This is the 21st century, not the 16th."

"As you wish, de gozaru," she said, bowing her head in acquiescence, before raising it again. "As I have just explained, my spirit is bound to your wakizashi. Wherever you carry it, you shall also carry me, and you may summon or unsummon me at will. Your katana holds the spirit of my master, Aoyama Hisato-dono. She was a firm defender of justice and a hopeless romantic, which is why the sword has the attributes it does. Hisato-dono cannot be summoned, as her remaining spiritual power is very low, and her will is too strong to allow summoning anyway. She can, however, manifest in particularly magic-rich areas, but only for a short time."

"Riiiiiiiiiiight..." Seno drawled, sharing a perplexed expression with Motoko. "And what's your story?"

"As the Aoyama clan is well-known for, my master spent her days battling demons, demons that were commanded by a rather unscrupulous character who had the penchant to transform slain warriors into the very demons he commanded. Perhaps it was whim, perhaps it was some measure of foresight, but my master swore me to bind my soul to my blade in the event that she was slain and turned, and that I would give my loyalty to whichever great warrior then freed her."

Seno thought back to the book that he and Motoko had found at Mahora's library, recalling from one of the early chapter how his ancestor had traveled with a band of adventurers into the tower of an extremely-powerful mage whose name has been lost to time, and there encountered a variety of cat-like anthromorph demons, and defeated and slew the leader of the demons, who was then revealed to be a powerful, ancient warrior of the Aoyama clan. It was then that the blade Shinaijou had first entered into the Nakakami family's hands.

"My ancestor," he said.

Kazue nodded. "My blade was given to your ancestor by Misdreal-sama, and I faithfully served him, and many others in your ancestry, each time I was called. And now, I am yours to command, de gozaru."

"Uhh...great." Seno looked over to Motoko, giving her a confused shrug and a number of confused gestures toward the ninja. He turned back toward Kazue, and looked at the blade, his blade, she was still holding. Leaning forward, he reached forward and grasped the weapon by the end of its hilt, and she released her hold on it, letting him take it in his hands. "All weeaboo and shenanigans aside, now does seem to be a pretty good time for this."

The swordsman stood up, and as if on cue, so did everyone else. "Before you say anything, we've largely figured that there's a sort of global hush-hush on the subject of such things as swords with spirits in them, magic, and the like," Seno's father said. "We don't know exactly what's been going on over the past year, but that big battle up at the top of the hill a few weeks ago was hard to miss. Whatever you guys are doing, know that your secret is safe with us. And that we send our prayers of safety and success with you."

Seno nodded solemnly. "We all feel it, too. Big things are coming this way..." And then he grinned, breaking the solemn mood. "But you've got guys like us standing in the way."

His father nodded as well, and smiled back at his son. "It's that knowledge that lets us sleep soundly at night."

With a last nod, Seno, Motoko, and their new ninja companion made their way back outside, pausing just long enough for the two Shinmeiryu users to put their boots back on, and then they were back on the way out to the street. Once halfway down the front walk, Kazue threw her arms up into the air and stretched languidly, letting out a pleased sigh at the release of tension.

"Man, I thought we'd never get out of there," she commented, now using a more modern, informal form of Japanese as though she'd been speaking it all her life. Outside the gate, standing beside Seno's motorcycle, she took a moment to turn in a full circle, taking in the world around her. "So, this is what the world's like four hundred years later, huh?" She nudged at the concrete with the toe of her tabi. "Interesting. I'll definitely be taking some time to check out everything this era has to offer. That is, if you don't have any tasks for me."

In the process of pulling on his helmet, Seno paused and looked at the ninja, who was watching him expectantly, and then back toward Motoko, who shrugged. The swordsman shrugged back at Kazue. "Nah, I don't have anything."

She bowed her head slightly. "See you later, then." And then she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The swordsman sighed.

"Never a dull moment, hm?" Motoko offered, smiling.


End file.
